Thoughts on Antiquity

Today is Opposite Day in the Blogosphere, and so I am to bring in a “guest blogger” to put forward an opinion opposite to my own. Therefore I introduce you to Brooks Vermuli, a Matthean scholar who holds that the Gospel of Matthew was written by a self-identifying Jew. Let’s here it for Brooks.

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Thank you Chris for allowing me to express my opinion on the authorship of the Gospel of Matthew.

The author of the Gospel of Matthew was an observant, self-identified Jew who scorned the Gentiles. It should be noted that the present Matthew is actually a much later, heavily interpolated gospel than what was original. In fact, the original Matthew was written in Hebrew.

Shem Tob in his series of articles on Matthew proved conclusively that Hebrew Matthew was to be considered more original than the Greek. Matthew Black likewise advanced an Aramaic Matthew as original. Clearly, no Gentile would be proficient enough to write a gospel in a Semitic language.

Furthermore, as we see in both Eusebius and Hebrew Matthew, the ending of Matthew is an expanded version with the original lacking the Trinitarian reference and the mentioning of Gentiles (Eusebius only lacking the former while the Heb. Matt. lacking both). As we see, if this certain pro-Gentile stance was introduced rather late in the gospel, then we can infer that other pro-Gentile passages could be interpolations as well.

In Matthew, Jesus tells his disciples that they are not to go unto the Gentiles or the Samaritans, and the non-Jewish woman who came to ask Jesus for a healing was only to be given “crumbs” since Jesus was for Israel only. Also, Jesus claims that none of the Law is to be overturned, and thus all of it is to be followed. As we saw from the Pauline-Petrine dispute, Gentiles were not in favor of keeping the whole of the Law.

Also, Matthew has certain distinguishing features of a Jewish author. He starts of with a genealogy beginning with Abraham, who was the Father of the Israel, not the Gentiles like the Gentile Luke. In the other Synoptics, the phrase “Kingdom of God” is used, but Matthew, being a conscious Jew, decided not to use the Holy Name but instead change it to “Kingdom of the Heavens”.

Also, Matthew cites the Old Testament more than any other Gospel author. His obsession with the Hebrew Scriptures is a clear indicator of a Jewish author, and not a Gentile one. Moreover, he is more familiar with the dominant Moses theme common to Jews of the time (see Josephus).

All in all, Matthew is clearly a Jewish author with no intention for Gentiles or their ways.

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Give a hearty thanks to Brooks for his insightful post. I will be addressing it shortly.